The U.N. refugee agency says a series of attacks by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has forced nearly 20,000 civilians to flee for their lives. More than 100 armed groups, such as the Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces, have been terrorizing communities in the eastern DRC for decades. On May 6, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi launched a state of emergency in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. Following that declaration, peoples’ hopes were raised that violence would end and law and order would be established in the region.However, U.N. refugee agency spokesman Babar Baloch says armed groups are continuing to devastate civilian lives. He says there is little military presence in the area to protect people from the relentless attacks.”Where civilians are on their own, then the armed groups get a chance to make a comeback and attack civilian lives,” said Baloch. “And that is why they have been going from town to town, villages to villages killing people, burning their houses, looting the houses, injuring the people as well. The UNHCR says the Allied Democratic Forces have allegedly killed at least 14 people and injured many others around the city of Beni since June 22. Last year, the ADF reportedly killed 500 civilians in eastern DRC. Over the past two years, nearly two million people in North Kivu province alone have been uprooted by insecurity and violence, according to the U.N.In the aftermath of the current crisis, Baloch says the UNHCR and partners are helping local authorities register forcibly displaced families and respond to their needs.”More than 100,000 people were assisted with emergency shelters in 2020 and almost 14,000 so far in 2021,” said Baloch. “But needs remain high as attacks by armed groups continue to displace people in the province, with many forced to flee multiple times.” Baloch says women and children are particularly vulnerable and are being provided with shelter, relief items and cash. He says his agency’s resources are overstretched as the international community has not responded well to its appeal. He says UNHCR’s $205 million appeal to run its DRC operations this year is only 36 percent funded.
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Month: July 2021
Gunmen Kill Nigerian Army General on Highway From Capital
Gunmen shot dead a Nigerian army general as he was traveling by car on a major road from the capital, Abuja, the army said Friday, in the first such fatal gun attack on a senior serving military officer.Armed robberies and kidnappings for ransom, particularly in the northwest, have become so frequent that many are afraid to travel by road. Growing nationwide lawlessness led legislators in April to call on the president to declare a state of emergency.Major General Hassan Ahmed was killed when gunmen attacked his vehicle Thursday along the Lokoja-Abuja road, army spokesman Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu said in a statement. Lokoja, 200 kilometers (124 miles) south of Abuja, is the capital of Kogi state.Nwachukwu did not say who was traveling with Ahmed, or how far outside of Abuja he was, but local media said the deceased general was with his driver and a relative.Ahmed was a director at army headquarters, and he had earlier served as the army’s Provost Marshal. While two retired generals were shot dead last year in attacks as they traveled by road, no serving general had previously been killed in this manner.The insecurity in northwestern Nigeria is joined by Islamist insurgencies in the northeast that the United Nations says have left 350,000 people dead over 12 years.In the middle of the country, conflicts between nomadic cattle herders and farmers have killed thousands and displaced half a million over the past decade, according to French medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) . In the southeast, a recent spate of attacks on police has triggered fears of a return to war and state-sanctioned violence.
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Russia Transfers Ex-US Marine to Region With Tough Soviet-era Prisons
A former U.S. Marine who is serving a nine-year sentence in Russia was being transferred Friday from a remand cell in Moscow to the Mordovia region, which has a large number of tough, Soviet-era prisons.
Trevor Reed was convicted last year of endangering the lives of two policemen in Moscow while drunk, a charge he denied. He said the ruling was “clearly political,” and Washington called the trial “theater of the absurd.”
Reed had remained in a remand cell after his conviction pending an appeal. That appeal was rejected, and his sentence was upheld at a court hearing last month.
“This morning Trevor Reed was [taken] from Moscow, he will serve his punishment in one of Mordovia’s [prison] colonies,” Alexei Melnikov, a member of a prison oversight commission was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency.
The region of Mordovia is about 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of Moscow. Paul Whelan, who is also a former U.S. Marine, is serving a 16-year sentence in a jail in the region on espionage charges that he has denied.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said before a summit with U.S. President Joe Biden last month that he was open to a prisoner exchange deal. It is not known whether Whelan or Reed might be included in any prisoner swap.
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COVID Vaccination Rate ‘Must Increase Rapidly’, WHO, Red Cross Warn
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has warned in a statement that the global COVID vaccination rate “must increase rapidly and protection measures upheld, if we are to win the race against more transmissible, and potentially more deadly, variants.”
“At least three quarters of people in most countries want to be vaccinated worldwide, in the face of emerging new variants, according to new survey data,” IFRC said. “However, despite lofty rhetoric about global solidarity, there is a deadly gap in the global plan to equitably distribute COVID-19 vaccines. Only around a quarter of the world’s population have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This number drops dramatically in low-income countries, where only 1% of people have received one dose. And some countries are yet to start mass vaccination campaigns.”
A group of human rights advocates is calling for humanitarian aid for Myanmar’s “crippling COVID-19 crisis.”
Myanmar
The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar said in a statement that the country is experiencing “a massive third wave of COVID-19″ and is “in urgent need of help.” It called on the United Nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and “other actors” to deliver assistance “directly to the people now.”
Yanghee Lee, of the advisory council, in a statement, accused the country’s junta of “weaponising COVID-19 for its own political gain by suffocating the democracy movement and seeking to gain the legitimacy and control it craves – and has so far been denied – by deliberately fueling a humanitarian disaster and then co-opting the international response.”
Millions of children did not receive their basic vaccinations last year as the world sought to bring the COVID-19 outbreak under control, leaving the youngsters vulnerable to preventable diseases like polio and measles.
The World Health Organization said in a recent statement that “23 million children missed out on basic vaccines through routine immunization services in 2020 – 3.7 million more than in 2019.”
Up to 17 million children, the WHO said, “likely did not receive a single vaccine during the year, widening already immense inequities in vaccine access.”
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “Multiple disease outbreaks would be catastrophic for communities and health systems already battling COVID-19, making it more urgent than ever to invest in childhood vaccination and ensure every child is reached.”
“This is a wake-up call,” said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. “We cannot allow a legacy of COVID-19 to be the resurgence of measles, polio and other killers.”
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Friday that there are more than 189 million global COVID cases. Worldwide more than 4 million people have died from COVID-19.
More than 3.5 billion vaccines have been administered, according to Johns Hopkins.
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Australia Called ‘Easy’ Target for Hackers
Australian cybersecurity experts are calling for more aggressive government action to protect businesses from ransomware attacks. Experts have warned a “tsunami of cybercrime” has cost the global economy about $743 billion.
Big companies can be attractive targets for cybercriminals who can extort millions of dollars after stealing sensitive commercial information.
The Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre is a collaboration between industry representatives, the Australian government and academics.
Its chief executive, Rachael Falk, believes Australia is an easy target for hackers because cyber defenses can be weak.
“More often than not, it is by sending an email where an employee clicks on a link,” she said. “They get into that organization, they have a good look around and they work out what is valuable data here that we can encrypt, which means we lock it up and we will take a copy of it. And then we will encrypt all the valuable data in that organization and then we will hold them to ransom for money. So, it is a business model for criminals that earns them money.”
The consequences for businesses can be extreme. They can lose valuable data, or have it leaked or sold by cyberthieves. In some cases, hackers can disable an organization’s entire operation. In March, a cyberattack disrupted broadcasts by Channel Nine, one of Australia’s most popular commercial television news networks. It sought help from the Australian Signals Directorate, a government intelligence agency.
Researchers want the government to require Australian companies to tell authorities when they are being targeted.
They also want clarity on whether paying ransoms is legal. Experts have said Australian law does not make it clear whether giving money to hackers is a criminal offense.
There is also a call for the government to use tax incentives to encourage Australian businesses to invest in cybersecurity.
Last year, federal government agencies said China had been responsible for a series of cyberattacks on Australian institutions, including hospitals and state-owned companies.
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Pacific Rim Leaders to Discuss Economic Way Out of Pandemic
U.S. President Joe Biden, his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Russian President Vladimir Putin are among Pacific Rim leaders gathering virtually to discuss strategies to help economies rebound from a resurgent COVID-19 pandemic.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will chair the special leaders’ meeting Friday of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
But the pandemic and vaccine diplomacy have proved to be divisive issues among members of a forum that says its primary goal is to support sustainable economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.
Biden spoke by phone with Ardern on Friday ahead of the leaders’ retreat and discussed U.S. interest in maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region, a White House statement said.
“They also discussed our cooperation on and engagement with Pacific Island nations,” the statement said.
The Biden administration has put a premium on tending to relations with allies in the Pacific early in his administration.
One of his first high-profile acts of diplomacy as president was hosting a virtual summit with fellow leaders of the Quad – Australia, India and Japan – a group central to his efforts to counter China’s growing military and economic power. And he hosted Suga and South Korea President Moon Jae-in for the first in-person foreign leader meetings of his presidency. South Korea is an APEC member and India is the only country in the Quad that is not.
Biden plans to use the virtual APEC retreat to talk to leaders about his administration’s efforts to serve “as an arsenal of vaccines to the world” in the battle against COVID-19 pandemic and how members of the alliance can collaborate to bolster the global economy, according to a senior Biden administration who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The U.S. has donated 4.5 million vaccine doses to Indonesia, 2 million to Vietnam, 1 million to Malaysia, and 3.2 million doses will soon be delivered to the Philippines. The White House says donations to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Papua New Guinea, will also soon be delivered. Laos and Cambodia are the only countries among those eight vaccine recipients that are not APEC members.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the “important meeting” came at a critical time as the world was facing a resurgence in COVID-19 infection numbers and international cooperation against the pandemic had entered a new stage.
“We hope all parties can uphold the vision of an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future, carry forward the Asia-Pacific partnership, send a positive message of fighting the coronavirus with solidarity and deepen economic recovery and cooperation,” Zhao said.
Suga will speak about his determination to hold a safe and secure Olympics when the games start in Tokyo on July 23, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said.
Suga will also emphasis Japan’s determination to secure fair access to vaccines for all countries and regions to support the global effort toward ending the COVID-19 pandemic, and Tokyo’s vision to expand a free and fair economic bloc, Kato said.
Ardern said APEC’s first leaders’ meeting outside the usual annual summits “reflects our desire to navigate together out of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis.”
“APEC economies have suffered their biggest contraction since the Second World War over the past year, with 81 million jobs lost. Responding collectively is vital to accelerate the economic recovery for the region,” said Ardern, whose South Pacific island nation has been among the most successful in the world in containing the virus.
The pace of a global vaccine rollout and conditions attached to international vaccine deals are vexed issues among APEC members.
The United States has been accused by some of hoarding vaccines. Biden came up well short on his goal of delivering 80 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the rest of the world by the end of June as a host of logistical and regulatory hurdles slowed the pace of U.S. vaccine diplomacy.
Although the Biden administration has announced that about 50 countries and entities will receive a share of the excess COVID-19 vaccine doses, the U.S. had shipped fewer than 24 million doses to 10 recipient countries by July 1, according to an Associated Press tally.
Taiwan, an APEC member that China claims as a renegade territory, has accused Beijing of tying the delivery of coronavirus vaccines to political demands. The government of the self-ruled island says China has intervened to block vaccine deliveries to Taiwan from fellow APEC members Japan and the United States.
China has accused Australia of interfering in the rollout of Chinese vaccines in former Australian colony Papua New Guinea. Both Australia and Papua New Guinea are also APEC members.
Sino-Australian relations plummeted last year when Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of and responses to the pandemic.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who will also join the meeting, said in a statement now was a “critical time for Australia to engage with regional partners to promote free trade facilitation, in particular for vaccines and essential goods; build momentum for strengthening the multilateral trading system; and secure a sustainable and inclusive recovery.”
China said that by May it was providing COVID-19 vaccines to nearly 40 African countries, describing its actions as purely altruistic.
The vaccines were donated or sold at “favorable prices,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said.
The online leaders’ meeting that is chaired from the New Zealand capital Wellington and straddles 11 time zones comes before the scheduled annual summit in November.
New Zealand’s pandemic response has been among the most effective in the world and the isolated nation of 5 million people has recorded just 26 COVID-19 deaths. But its vaccination campaign has been far slower than in most developed countries.
Ardern said leading a regional response to the pandemic was one of New Zealand’s highest priorities when it took over as APEC’s chair from Malaysia in an annual rotation among the 21 members.
“I will be inviting discussion on immediate measures to achieve more coordinated regional action to assist recovery, as well as steps that will support inclusive and sustainable growth over the long term,” she said. “APEC leaders will work together to get through the pandemic and promote a sustainable and inclusive recovery, because nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”
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Dutch Crime Reporter De Vries Dies After Amsterdam Shooting
Peter R. de Vries, a renowned Dutch journalist who fearlessly reported on the violent underworld of the Netherlands and campaigned to breathe new life into cold cases, has died at age 64 after being shot in a brazen attack last week, his family said Thursday.
“Peter fought to the end, but was unable to win the battle,” the family said in a statement sent to Dutch media.
While the motive for de Vries’ shooting remains unknown, the July 6 attack on an Amsterdam street had the hallmarks of the gangland hits taking place with increasing regularity in the Dutch underworld the journalist covered.
Two suspects have been detained. Dutch police said the suspected shooter is a 21-year-old Dutchman, and a 35-year-old Polish man living in the Netherlands is accused of driving the getaway car. They were arrested not long after de Vries was wounded.
De Vries rose rapidly from a young cub reporter to become the Netherlands’ best-known journalist. He was a pillar of support for families of slain or missing children, a campaigner against injustice and a thorn in the side of gangsters.
“Peter has lived by his conviction: ‘On bended knee is no way to be free,’” the family statement said. “We are unbelievably proud of him and at the same time inconsolable.”
De Vries had been fighting for his life in an Amsterdam hospital since the attack. The statement said he died surrounded by loved ones and requested privacy for de Vries’ family and partner “to process his death in peace.” Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.
The shooting happened after de Vries made one of his regular appearances on a current affairs television show. He had recently been an adviser and confidant for a witness in the trial of the alleged leader and other members of a crime gang that police described as an “oiled killing machine.”
The suspected gangland leader, Ridouan Taghi, was extradited to the Netherlands from Dubai in 2019. He remains jailed while standing trial along with 16 other suspects.
Caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte led the tributes to de Vries in the Netherlands.
“Peter R. de Vries was always dedicated, tenacious, afraid of nothing and no one. Always seeking the truth and standing up for justice,” Rutte said in a tweet. “And that makes it all the more dramatic that he himself has now become the victim of a great injustice.”
Dutch King Willem Alexander last week called the shooting of de Vries “an attack on journalism, the cornerstone of our constitutional state and therefore also an attack on the rule of law.”
The slaying also struck a chord elsewhere in Europe, where murders of reporters are rare. The killings of journalists in Slovakia and Malta in recent years have raised concerns about reporters’ safety in developed, democratic societies.
In a tweet, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was “deeply saddened by the news of Peter R. de Vries’ passing. I want to express my condolences to his family and loved ones.”
She added: “Investigative journalists are vital to our democracies. We must do everything we can to protect them.”
De Vries won an International Emmy in 2008 for a television show he made about the disappearance of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway while she was on holiday in the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba in 2005.
In 2018, while acting as a spokesman for the family of an 11-year-old boy who was abused and killed in 1998, de Vries appealed for tips about the whereabouts of a suspect identified in a DNA probe.
“I can’t live with the idea that he won’t be arrested,” de Vries said when appealing for help at a televised press conference. “I won’t rest until it happens.”
The suspect was arrested a few weeks later in Spain and convicted last year in the death of the boy, Nicky Verstappen.
De Vries’ comment about the suspect in Nicky’s slaying summed up the tenacity that was a cornerstone of a career that saw him report on some of the Netherlands’ most notorious crimes, including the 1983 kidnapping of beer magnate Freddy Heineken.
Acting on a tip, de Vries tracked down one of the kidnappers in Paraguay in 1994.
He befriended another of the kidnappers, Cor van Hout, who was later gunned down in Amsterdam. Another of the kidnappers, Willem Holleeder, who was van Hout’s brother-in-law, was convicted in 2019 of inciting the killings of van Hout and four other people. Holleeder was sentenced to life imprisonment.
De Vries also was known for tenaciously campaigning to find the truth behind the 1994 slaying of a 23-year-old woman, Christel Ambrosius. Two men from the town where she was killed were convicted in 1995 and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, but de Vries refused to believe they were guilty.
They were acquitted in 2002, and in 2008, another man was convicted of Ambrosius’ killing.
Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus issued a statement calling de Vries “a brave man who lived without compromise. He would not allow himself to be intimidated by criminals.”
Grapperhaus said he “tracked down injustice throughout his life. By doing so he made an enormous contribution to our democratic state. He was part of its foundation.”
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Russian Pipeline Remains Sticking Point in Biden-Merkel Meeting
US President Joe Biden hosted German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House on Thursday. The two leaders highlighted a stronger transatlantic relationship and cooperation on a range of issues, but differences remain on the Nord Stream 2 Russian natural gas pipeline. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
Producer: Barry Unger
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Oregon Wildfire Displaces 2,000 Residents as Blazes Flare Across US West
Hand crews backed by water-dropping helicopters struggled on Thursday to suppress a huge wildfire that displaced roughly 2,000 residents in southern Oregon, the largest among dozens of blazes raging across the drought-stricken western United States.
The Bootleg Fire has charred more than 91,860 hectares of desiccated timber and brush in and around the Fremont-Winema National Forest since erupting on July 6 about 400 kilometers south of Portland.
That total, exceeding the land mass of New York City, was 12,000 acres higher than Wednesday’s tally. Strike teams have carved containment lines around 7% of the fire’s perimeter, up from 5% a day earlier, but Incident Commander Joe Hessel said the blaze would continue to expand. “The extremely dry vegetation and weather are not in our favor,” Hessel said on Twitter.
More than 1,700 firefighters and a dozen helicopters were assigned to the blaze, with demand for personnel and equipment across the Pacific Northwest beginning to strain available resources, said Jim Gersbach, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Forestry.
“It’s uncommon for us to reach this level of demand on firefighting resources this early” in the season, he said.
Firefighter Garrett Souza, 42, a resident of the nearby town of Chiloquin, said Wednesday he and his team spent 39 hours straight on the “initial attack” of the fire last week.
“It’s the cumulative fatigue that really, I think, wears a person out over time,” he told Reuters, as he took a break from hacking at hotspots in the burn area.
No serious injuries have been linked to the Bootleg Fire, officials said, but it has destroyed at least 21 homes and 54 other structures, and forced an estimated 2,000 people from several hundred dwellings placed under evacuation. Nearly 2,000 homes were threatened.
Largest of many wildfires
The Bootleg ranks as the largest by far of 70 major active wildfires listed on Thursday as having affected nearly 1 million acres in 11 states, the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, reported. It was also the sixth-largest on record in Oregon since 1900, according to state forestry figures.
Other states hard hit by the latest spate of wildfires include California, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.
As of Wednesday, the center in Boise put its “national wildland fire preparedness level” at 5, the highest of its five-tier scale, meaning most U.S. firefighting resources are currently deployed somewhere across the country.
The situation represents an unusually busy start to the annual fire season, coming amid extremely dry conditions and record-breaking heat that has baked much of the West in recent weeks.
Scientists have said the growing frequency and intensity of wildfires are largely attributable to prolonged drought that is symptomatic of climate change.
One newly ignited blaze drawing attention on Thursday was the Dixie Fire, which erupted on Wednesday in Butte County, California, near the mountain town of Paradise, still rebuilding from a 2018 firestorm that killed 85 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures in the state’s deadliest wildfire disaster.
The Dixie Fire has charred about 910 hectares in its first 24 hours as some 500 personnel battled the blaze, which was spreading across a steep, rocky tree-filled terrain about 140 kilometers north of Sacramento.
Erik Wegner of the U.S. Forest Service said dense stands of dead and dying trees created highly combustible conditions for the blaze. “It took off really fast,” he told Reuters.
Authorities have issued evacuation orders and warnings for several small communities in the area.
In Washington state, firefighters have contained about 20% of a lightning-caused fire near Nespelem, which has burned nearly 9,270 hectares northeast of Seattle since Monday, mostly on tribal lands of the Colville Reservation.
There were no injuries, but the blaze killed some livestock, destroyed three houses and forced evacuations of several others, officials said.
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A Team of Refugees Competes in Olympic Games for Only 2nd Time in History
29 elite athletes from 11 countries comprise the International Olympic Committee’s Refugee Olympic Team. The group will compete in the Summer Games in Tokyo that open later this month. As VOA’s Laurel Bowman reports, it is only the second time in history that a team of refugee athletes will compete in the Games.
Producer: Adam Greenbaum and Laurel Bowman
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South African Government Sends Thousands of Soldiers Into Areas of Unrest
The South African government is sending 25,000 soldiers to areas it calls “flashpoints” as it tries to stop violence from spreading across the country.Protests against the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma for contempt of court grew into civil unrest late last week.Mobs have looted and destroyed parts of cities, burning and destroying factories and warehouses. Scores of people have been killed and hundreds injured.As soldiers stream into areas threatened by mobs, so, too, are vigilantes. In video sent to VOA by a senior army officer, private citizens can be seen opening fire with pistols, shotguns and rifles on a crowd trying to enter a suburb in the port city of Durban. The mobs were armed with bricks, clubs and large, broad-bladed knives. Deadly Rioting Continues in South Africa Rioting and looting raise death toll to more than 70 as defiant protesters ignore government demands to end violenceSecurity analysts told VOA that people are taking the law into their own hands amid an erosion of faith in the ability of the police to protect them.The violence in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma’s home province, prompted Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini to plead with his subjects.“It has brought great shame upon us all. I never thought … I would see our own people so complicit in burning down the country. … My father’s people are committing suicide,” the king said.The violence began after Zuma surrendered to prison authorities last week to begin serving a sentence for refusing to testify in an investigation of alleged corruption during his years in office. The investigation has split the African National Congress, which has led the country since apartheid ended 27 years ago.Zuma’s supporters took to the streets, but the protests quickly turned into looting, as a country struggling with 30% unemployment, constant power outages and the coronavirus pandemic.
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Zimbabwe NGO Sues Government Over Alleged Planned Export of Elephants
A Zimbabwean environmental group is suing the government over purported plans to export elephants to China, which the group says has subjected the animals to unhealthful conditions.In an application to Zimbabwe’s High Court, Advocates4Earth is seeking to prevent the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority from carrying out the transfer.Lenin Tinashe Chisaira, head of the environmental group, said, “Basically, we are applying for a declaratory order that the Zimbabwe government and its agencies should respect international conventions, especially the resolutions that African elephants, African wildlife, should not be exported to destinations that are not appropriate for these species that are not natural or historic range. “We strongly feel that there is a desire by some agencies of the government to violate those agreements by exporting some of our species to countries such as China, without abiding by the existing legal framework.”The court application also cites the country’s environment minister, Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu, in the lawsuit.Zimbabwe’s elephant population has grown in recent years, climbing to 100,000. Some farmers have complained that the elephants are destroying their crops and grazing lands.However, the Zimbabwe Wildlife Authority denies it is in the process of exporting elephants to China.’Saying a lot of negatives’Tinashe Farawo, the authority’s spokesperson, said of the environmentalists, “These are people trying to seek relevance. In President [Emmerson] Mnangagwa’s address, he put those people on notice. They are people who are bent on saying a lot of negatives. And they must prove that this is what we are doing. … Fact remains: We are not capturing any elephants for export. Nothing of that sort is happening. They must bring the evidence.”In the past, Zimbabwe has exported elephants to other countries despite objections from animal rights and environmental groups such as Advocates4Earth.On Thursday, officials at the Chinese Embassy in Harare refused to comment, saying they were not cited in the court papers.
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US Launches Anti-poverty Payments to Poor American Families
The Biden administration on Thursday launched the biggest U.S. anti-poverty program in a half century, sending monthly payments for the first time to help most American parents care for their children.The Treasury Department said the money would be deposited in the bank accounts of about 39 million households covering 88% of children in the U.S. — representing about 60 million children in all. Under the program, families will receive up to $300 per month for each child under age 6 and $250 monthly stipends for each child 6 and older. For the moment, the payments will extend through the end of 2021, although Biden and his Democratic Party colleagues in Congress hope to extend the benefit as part of a package of social safety net measures they want to enact. If extended, the program is expected to cost about $120 billion annually.Republicans say Biden’s initiatives are too costly and object to his call to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay for them.White House officials say the benefit could lift millions of families out of poverty and improve childhood nutrition and mental health. Some historians are comparing it to the benefits in the 1960s under President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.Inflation worriesBut critics of the new spending say that some of the benefits could be eaten away by rising U.S. consumer prices, which advanced at a rapid 5.4% annual pace in June, according to the government. Financial policy makers say the U.S. inflation rate could remain high for months before easing back, as the world’s biggest economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.Some economists say the money pumped into the U.S. economy could help fuel a too-rapid recovery, leading to further consumer price increases.Under terms of the benefit, part of a stimulus package passed by Democrats in March, the tax credit for taxpayers with children diminishes for individuals with adjusted gross income of more than $75,000, as well as for couples earning more than $150,000, and disappears for higher earners.The very poorest American families are eligible to receive the benefit in full. Previously, under the U.S. tax code, families were excluded from tax credits for their children if they did not earn enough for their income to be offset by the tax benefit.But some of the poorest families in the U.S. have never filed income tax returns, which means the U.S. tax collection agency, the Internal Revenue Service, could have trouble finding them to send them the new benefit. The White House says it is working to alleviate the problem.
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Spain Struggles to Contain Rising COVID Infections
Spain has experienced a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in the past month which have prompted authorities to impose fresh restrictions in many parts of the country.The 14-day coronavirus contagion rate was 469.50 per 100,000 of population, according to Spanish health ministry data released on Wednesday, making Spain’s one of the highest levels in Europe.Barcelona and the surrounding region of Catalonia plan to impose a curfew to curb the delta variant of the coronavirus, which is running rampant among younger, unvaccinated Spaniards.The Catalan regional authorities on Thursday were waiting for a judge to approve a nightly curfew after the two-week contagion level surpassed 1,000 cases per 100,000 people.Hospital staff treat a patient suffering from COVID-19 at Hospital del Mar, where an additional ward has been opened to deal with an increase in coronavirus patients in Barcelona, Spain, July 15, 2021.Possible paybackFor the Spanish state it also means a potential financial headache because 1.1 million fines imposed for breaking the state of emergency can now be appealed in court, meaning the government could be forced to refund the fines it imposed on some people. After the court ruling on Wednesday, Spain’s Justice Minister Pilar Llop told a press conference that said the original state of emergency “saved 450,000 lives.””The duty of the government was to take immediate, urgent measures when faced with the rapid propagation of the virus,” she added.Pablo Simón, a political analyst at the Carlos III University in Madrid, said the ruling had important implications for how Spain can control the pandemic. “All fines imposed can now be appealed which will cause financial implications for the government,” he told VOA.”According to the constitution, the state of exception can only be applied for 30 days. It was designed for public disturbances, not for pandemics.””Spain is left in a situation where it lacks a judicial instrument to impose limitations on personal liberties which are suited to a pandemic.” Delta variantRafael Bengoa, a former World Health Organization health systems director who is now the director of the Institute for Health and Strategy in Bilbao, said he believed Spain has been overwhelmed by the spread of the delta variant.“I said three weeks ago we would not control the delta variant. That variant is faster in everything; more transmissible, more virulent, when infected you reach higher viral loads sooner,” he told VOA.“Hospitals are beginning to fill up like they did in the UK with younger people. Vaccination is proving insufficient when there is community transmission and that can only be controlled with much tougher measures,” he said. “At present regional authorities must ask judges if they can bring in curfews, close bars etc but this is a sign of helplessness. Re-centralization of decisions would help to save the end of the summer,” Bengoa added.
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Dutch Crime Reporter Dies of Gunshot Wounds
A well-known Dutch crime reporter who was shot last week in Amsterdam has died.A statement from the family of Peter R. de Vries said the journalist “fought to the end but was unable to win the battle.””Peter has lived by his conviction: ‘On bended knee is no way to be free,'” the statement said. “We are unbelievably proud of him, and at the same time, inconsolable.””Peter R. de Vries was always dedicated, tenacious, afraid of nothing and no one. Always seeking the truth and standing up for justice,” Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a tweet. “And that makes it all the more dramatic that he himself has now become the victim of a great injustice.”De Vries, 64, was struck in the head by one of five rounds fired as he left a television studio on July 6. Police arrested two suspects in connection with the shooting — a 21-year-old Dutchman suspected of being the shooter, and a 35-year-old Polish man accused of driving the getaway car.De Vries is a household name in the Netherlands, known for confronting gangsters and drug kingpins, and helping police disentangle high-profile homicides and solving cold cases like that of 11-year-old Nicky Verstappen, whose 1998 murder went unsolved for over 20 years. De Vries is also famed for his coverage of the abduction of brewing magnate Freddy Heineken in the 1980s. The reporter has long lived with death threats. Earlier this year, he told a magazine he wasn’t afraid, saying, “That’s part of the job.” Local media say De Vries recently had been counseling a gangster-turned-witness identified as Nabil B., in the murder and racketeering trial of suspected drug kingpin Ridouan Taghi. One of Nabil B.’s lawyers was killed 18 months ago, and some Dutch media questioned whether the murder is linked to Taghi’s trial.The attack on De Vries came just months after TV crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz was fatally shot outside his home in Athens. He was struck by at least half-a-dozen shots in April fired by a passenger on a motorbike.In February 2018, Slovak investigative reporter Ján Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová, were found shot to death in their home in Veľká Mača, western Slovakia. The 27-year-old reporter had been probing economic crimes involving high-profile Slovak businessmen with ties to politicians.
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US Surgeon General Issues Advisory on COVID Misinformation
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a public health advisory Thursday urging the public to help limit the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, which he says has led to the slowdown of the U.S. vaccination program.
In Murthy’s advisory, the first he has issued since taking office earlier this year, the surgeon general calls health misinformation “a serious threat to public health” that can “cause confusion, sow mistrust, harm people’s health, and undermine public health efforts.”
He points to a recent study showing that even brief exposure to COVID-19 vaccine misinformation has made people less likely to want to get vaccinated, at a time when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports about one-third of U.S. adults are still not vaccinated.
The surgeon general said misinformation also has led to harassment and violence against public health workers, and other professions seeking to communicate or enforce public health measures.
Murthy differentiates between misinformation, and disinformation, which is wrong information spread intentionally for financial gain or political advantage, for example. He says people who share misinformation often do so out of confusion or honest efforts to get the facts.
The surgeon general suggests misinformation is often framed in a sensational or provocative manner, which makes it spread more easily on social media platforms that use algorithms rewarding “likes” and comments or reactions to material that is posted.
Murthy called on the public to verify accuracy of information they receive by checking with trustworthy and credible sources. He said, “If you’re not sure, don’t share.”
He also encouraged people to engage with friends and family on the issue.
“If someone you care about has a misperception, you might be able to make inroads with them by first seeking to understand instead of passing judgment,” he said.
The surgeon general also called on tech companies to “tweak their algorithms” to avoid amplifying misinformation.
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American Journalist Remains Jailed in Myanmar After Court Appearance
An American journalist detained in Myanmar since May remains in prison following another virtual court appearance Thursday as he faces allegations of working to foment dissent against the country’s military government. Danny Fenster, who is the managing editor of the website Frontier Myanmar, is being held for allegedly violating section 505-A of the country’s penal code.If he is found guilty, he could face up to three years in prison.“Nothing to report,” his brother Bryan Fenster, told the website Deadline Detroit following Thursday’s appearance. “There’s no indication when they will charge, if they will charge and what evidence they have,” he said.He also told the local digital news publication the family was worried about a new wave of COVID-19 hitting the country. Bryan told Deadline Detroit he’d “heard prison guards and personnel are getting sick and are on leave.”In an email to cable channel CNBC, a State Department spokesperson wrote, “We are concerned with rising COVID-19 infection rates in Burma and urge the military regime to release Daniel now in light of declining public health conditions.”Another hearing is scheduled two weeks from now.“We remain deeply concerned over the continued detention of U.S. citizen Daniel Fenster, who was working as a journalist in Burma. We have pressed the military regime to release Daniel immediately and will continue to do so until he returns home safely to his family,” the State Department wrote, according to CNBC.Fenster was arrested May 24 at Yangon’s airport as he tried to leave the country.Another American journalist, Nathan Maung, who was detained in March for allegedly violating 505-A, was released Monday and left the country.Two Myanmar journalists were jailed for two years under the law, The Associated Press reported in June.The military took power February 1, overthrowing the civilian government and detaining de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other high-ranking officials.Since the coup, widespread protests have rocked Myanmar, many of them turning violent as government officials cracked down. Hundreds of civilians, including dozens of children, have been killed by government troops and police since the coup.The U.S. has sanctioned military leaders, some of their family members and other businesses in the country. The U.S. has also called for the immediate release of Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy Party, ousted President Win Myint, and protesters, journalists and human rights activists it says have been unjustly detained since the coup. Military officials claimed widespread fraud in last November’s general election, which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide, as justification for the February takeover. The fraud allegations have been denied by Myanmar’s electoral commission.
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WHO Chief Calls for Better Cooperation from China on COVID-19 Origins
The World Health Organization ((WHO)) Thursday called on China to cooperate more fully with investigations into the origins of COVID-19, saying a full accounting is owed to the millions of people who suffered and died.
During a briefing at the agency’s Geneva headquarters, along with German Health Minister Jens Spahn, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said China needs to be more open and transparent and supply more raw data regarding the first days in which the virus was discovered.
Tedros said raw data could help explain how the virus developed and spread, and prevent it from happening again. He also said the world owes it to pandemic victims.
“I think we owe it to the millions who suffered and to the millions who died really to understand what happened,” he said.
The WHO chief said the agency and its member states have continued engaging with China to get the answers, and he believes there will be better cooperation in the future.
The WHO sent an international delegation to China earlier this year on a four-week mission to determine the origin of the coronavirus. Their report concluded the pathogen originated in an animal and was transferred to humans. But many, including U.S. President Joe Biden, felt the probe was “insufficient and inconclusive.” Tedros called for further study on the matter.
Also at Thursday’s briefing, Tedros reported the WHO Emergency Committee has raised concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic is being mischaracterized as ending, while it is nowhere near finished.
Tedros said the committee, which held its eighth 2021 meeting on Thursday, also warned about the strong likelihood for the emergence and global spread of new and possibly more dangerous COVID-19 variants that may be even more challenging to control.
He said the committee called on all countries to support WHO’s goal to vaccinate at least 10% of the population of every country by the end of September.
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COVID-19 Surging in Africa, WHO Warns
The World Health Organization has warned that COVID-19 is gaining ground in Africa, with the death toll jumping 43% in the past week. WHO says the continent recorded 1 million new cases in just one month, with several countries facing shortages of oxygen and beds for patients.Speaking during a virtual press briefing Thursday, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director, said Africa is recording its highest number of COVID-19 cases since the virus hit the continent in early 2020.”Over the past month, Africa recorded an additional 1 million cases,” Moeti said. “This is the shortest time it has taken so far to add one1 million cases. Comparatively, it took around three months to move from 4 million to 5 million cases. This COVID-19 resurgence is the fastest the continent has seen.”WHO Calls for Urgent Action to Slow COVID-19 Spread in AfricaCases have been rising by 25% every week for six weeks, fueled by a surge of more contagious variants of the diseaseThe global health agency says 12 African countries are experiencing an upward trend of coronavirus, including Algeria, Malawi, Senegal and Zimbabwe.Moeti says the number of Africans losing lives to the virus is high.”As this surge sweeps across Africa, we are witnessing a brutal cost, and life-lost deaths have climbed steeply for the past five weeks, jumping 40 percent in the past week,” Moeti said. “This is a clear warning our hospitals are at a breaking point. In all, 153,000 people have sadly died. Africa is just 1 percent shy of the peak in fatalities reached in January.”The increase in deaths is partly blamed on the delta coronavirus variant that medical experts say is the most transmittable of all the variants. It has been reported in 21 African countries.
Namibia is one African country where the total number of COVID-19 positives is on the decline. However, more than 1,000 people have died there from COVID-19 in the last month. Ismail Katjitae is a physician at the Ministry of Health and Social Services in Namibia. He explains why the death rate is so high. “A high prevalence of comorbidities in some communities, limited capacity in some districts and regions to manage severe and critical cases,” Katjitae said. “And a strong misinformation lobby resulting in noncompliance with public health measures, underutilizing available health care services, and delayed complicated presentation in our health facilities.”So far, only 18 million people out of the 1.3 billion living in Africa have been vaccinated. Some African countries blame the slow vaccination process on the shortage of vaccine doses in the global market. UNICEF to Ship 220 Million Doses of J&J COVID-19 Vaccine to African Union Agreement reached with Belgium-based and J&J-owned Janssen Pharmaceutica NV
Catherine Kyobutungi is the head of the African Population and Health Research Center. She says African governments should ask their citizens to follow health protocols like washing hands and wearing masks to limit the spread of the virus.”Other than the usual measures, Africa does not have too many options without really having much of its population vaccinated,” Kyobutungi said. “So, the hope is that in the next month around August, many countries will receive at least substantial doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, but before then, keeping in place the usual measures.”Most African countries have eased health measures meant to combat the spread of the virus for economic reasons, and failure to follow those measures is blamed for the spread.
Some African countries expect to get hundreds of thousands of vaccines in the coming weeks as the Aspen pharmaceutical company in South Africa begins producing 400 million vaccines.
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Biden to Meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel
U.S. President Joe Biden meets German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House Thursday in what will probably be her last official visit.
After 16 years as chancellor, Merkel plans to leave the government following national elections in September.
“This visit will affirm the deep and enduring bilateral ties between the United States and Germany,” the White House said Wednesday.
Biden and Merkel will discuss a variety of issues that include “countering the threat of climate change, ending the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing security and regional challenges, and shoring up democracy around the world,” according to the White House.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss a Russian gas pipeline that Washington opposes. The Nord Stream 2 project transports natural gas from Russia to Germany.
The U.S. has argued that the project will put European energy security at risk by increasing Europe’s reliance on Russian gas and allowing the Kremlin to pressure vulnerable countries in Eastern and Central Europe.
Merkel’s spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, told reporters the leaders will also discuss China, which has strong trade relations with Germany. Some political observers say Merkel, who has criticized China’s human rights record, hopes to avoid having to choose between the U.S. and China.
Merkel’s agenda Thursday also includes dinner at the White House with President Biden, first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Douglass Emhoff.
Merkel will also make remarks after receiving an honorary degree at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
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US Jobless Benefit Claims Drop to Lowest Point Since Mid-March 2020
Claims for jobless benefits dropped in the U.S. last week to their lowest level since mid-March 2020, the Labor Department reported Thursday, as the world’s biggest economy continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
A total of 360,000 unemployed workers sought government compensation, down 26,000 from the revised figure of the week before, the agency said. But the new figure remained well above the 256,000 total recorded just before the coronavirus waylaid the American economy 16 months ago and closed many U.S. businesses.
The weekly claims total has tracked unevenly in recent weeks, but overall, jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs of workers, have fallen by more than 40% since early April, while remaining well above the pre-pandemic levels.
About 9.5 million people remain unemployed in the U.S. and looking for work. There also are 9.2 million job openings, the government says, although the skill sets of the jobless do not necessarily match the needs of employers.
The U.S. added 850,000 jobs in June, with the unemployment rate at 5.9%. Some employers are offering cash bonuses to new hires to take jobs as the economy rebounds and consumers are willing to spend.
State governors and municipal officials across the U.S. have been ending coronavirus restrictions, in many cases allowing businesses for the first time in a year to completely reopen to customers. That could lead to more hiring of workers.
More than 59% of U.S. adults have now been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, boosting the economic recovery, although the pace of inoculations has dropped markedly from its peak several weeks ago, worrying health experts and government officials.
Officials in many states are now offering a variety of incentives to entice the unvaccinated to get inoculated, including entry into lucrative lotteries for cash and free college tuition. The U.S. did not meet President Joe Biden’s goal of 70% of adult Americans with at least one vaccination shot by the July 4 Independence Day holiday. The figure now stands shy of that at 67.8%, with Biden and health officials often calling for more people to get vaccinated.
With the business reopenings, many employers are reporting a shortage of workers, particularly for low-wage jobs such as restaurant servers and retail clerks.
The federal government approved sending $300-a-week supplemental unemployment benefits to jobless workers through early September on top of less generous state-by-state payments. But at least 25 of the 50 states, all led by Republican governors, are ending participation in the federal payments program, contending that the stipends let workers make more money than they would by returning to work, and thus are hurting the recovery by not filling available job openings.
Some economists say, however, other factors prevent people from returning to work, such as lack of childcare or fear of contracting the coronavirus as the Delta variant first found in India spreads rapidly in the U.S.
The economic picture in the U.S. has advanced as money from President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package filters through the economy. The measure has likely boosted consumer spending, as millions of Americans, all but the highest wage earners, are now receiving $1,400 stimulus checks from the government or have already been sent the extra cash.
With more money in their wallets and more people vaccinated, Americans are venturing back to some sense of normalcy, going out to restaurants and spending money on items they had not purchased for a year.
Biden is supporting a plan to spend $1.2 trillion to repair deteriorating roads and bridges and construct new broadband service, agreeing to the deal with a group of centrist lawmakers. It is not yet clear, however, whether the package will win enough support for passage in the Senate. With approval, it could add thousands of construction jobs to the U.S. economy.
This week, Democratic lawmakers unveiled a $3.5 trillion plan for more health care coverage for older Americans, increased financial benefits for most U.S. families with young children, and more spending to advance clean energy. But Republicans are uniformly opposed to its cost and Biden’s plan to pay for it with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
The so-called human infrastructure measure, however, will only win passage in the politically divided Senate if Democrats vote as a unified 50-member bloc, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding tie-breaking vote, because no Republicans currently support it.
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Under Siege: How Failed Coup Gave Way to Major Media Crackdown in Turkey
Five years ago this week, tanks rolled into the streets of Ankara and Istanbul, and soldiers ordered a news anchor at Turkey’s state broadcaster, TRT, to read a statement announcing the military had seized power. The coup attempt was shut down quickly. But for the country’s media and voices of opposition, July 15, 2016, spurred an era of accusations and arrests, including the arrests of journalists who had covered events that night.One of those was Ilhan Tanir, then Washington correspondent for Turkey’s oldest newspaper, Cumhuriyet. Tanir recalls watching the coup unfold from the U.S., with TV stations interrupting regular programming to show military vehicles on Istanbul’s iconic Bosporus Bridge.Ilhan Tanir, pictured in July, is a Turkish journalist based in Washington, D.C. In 2016, he reported on the failed attempted July 15 coup for Turkey’s oldest newspaper, Cumhuriyet.”At the time, there were a lot of ISIS attacks in Turkey,” the journalist told VOA, referring to the Islamic State terror group. “The rumors and the tweets were talking about how it could be some kind of ISIS attack.” But, Tanir said quickly, “we understood there was a coup.” In the hours that followed, Tanir used Twitter to convey information from Turkish sources to his English-speaking audience. Months later, Turkish prosecutors claimed his earlier social media posts and news reporting were evidence that Tanir belonged to the Gulen movement, the group accused of orchestrating the coup. It was an accusation leveled at other journalists too. In the past five years, record numbers were arrested, often on accusations of supporting or producing propaganda for a terrorist organization. Authorities tightened control over digital and social media and forced some news outlets to close or come under new ownership. At Tanir’s outlet alone, at least a dozen journalists, including former Editor-in-Chief Can Dundar, were accused of being part of the Gulen movement, a grassroots religious organization led by Fethullah Gulen.The 80-year-old cleric, who lives in self-imposed exile in the U.S., denies any involvement. Addressing his party’s provincial heads on July 8 of this year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the failed coup as “one of the most treacherous attempts in our history.” The attempt to thwart democracy left around 250 people dead and more than 2,000 injured. Erdogan said that it had been carried out by Gulenists but had “a much wider network behind it.” FILE – The names of civilians and police killed while resisting a failed coup attempt are displayed on a banner in Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey, July 20, 2016. The slogan reads: ‘Sovereignty belongs to the nation.’Turkey has also dismissed international criticism of the arrests of critics and reporters. In a 2017 BBC interview, FILE – Banners and flags are waved at a solidarity rally nearly two weeks after a failed attempted coup in Ankara, Turkey, July 27, 2016.”It wasn’t just members of the Gulen movement that were targeted at the stage,” said Merve Tahiroglu, the Turkey program coordinator at Project on Middle East Democracy, or POMED, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. “It was also people who had nothing to do with this movement. Many Kurdish outlets were among the first media outlets that were shut down by decree in the state of emergency,” she said. “And we saw a lot of journalists, particularly Kurdish journalists but also liberal voices, progressive voices, get detained or sacked from their jobs.” For some, the accusations appeared to stem from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. On the day of the coup, Henri Barkey, a Middle East expert and professor of international relations at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, was on Istanbul’s Buyukada Island, speaking at a workshop on Iran’s relations with its neighbors. But Ankara saw the American analyst’s presence in Istanbul differently. It issued an arrest warrant for Barkey, and pro-government newspapers described him as a CIA operative working inside the country to topple Erdogan. “It has been very costly to me, this Turkish accusation,” said Barkey, who denies the allegations. “I can’t go to Turkey, obviously, to do my research there. People avoid me. Friends of mine have stopped talking to me because they are afraid, because any association with me is problematic and can be used against them,” he told VOA. FILE – An unidentified solider accused of attempting to assassinate Turkey’s president during the failed attempted coup is escorted to a court hearing, Oct. 4, 2017.Analysts say those numbers are higher today and include prominent politicians such as Selahattin Demirtas, the co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, who has been behind bars since November 2016. Last month, the Turkish Constitutional Court ordered HDP to go on trial for alleged links to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. If connections are proven, the HDP will shut down like all the other pro-Kurdish parties preceding it. Ankara’s actions have resulted in media watchdogs labeling Turkey as the worst jailer of journalists. By the end of 2016, at least 86 journalists were jailed in Turkey, according to the New York City-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which tracks arrests linked directly to working as a journalist. CPJ’s annual prison census, which reflects the number of detained journalists, continued to show high figures in the years following the coup: 74 in 2017, 68 in 2018 and 37 at the last count, in late 2020. Alongside its snapshot of arrests, the press freedom organization flagged Turkey’s “revolving door” approach of detentions, releases, and rearrests.The European Union has also warned Turkey that its aspirations for membership hang on the country ending its authoritarian practices. “Human rights, the rule of law, democracy, fundamental freedoms — including media freedom — are all basic imperative requirements for any progress towards the European Union,” Johannes Hahn, the EU’s membership commissioner, said after talks with Turkey in 2017.’Abusing Interpol’ Journalist Tanir says he considered himself lucky to be outside of Turkey in 2016 and therefore able to avoid arrest. Court documents accused him and his colleagues of additional crimes: undermining the Turkish state and supporting the PKK. The armed Kurdish group, which is seeking autonomy, has been designated a terrorist organization by both Ankara and Washington. Tanir denies any association with either the PKK or the Gulen movement. But he is still wanted internationally because of a “red notice” arrest warrant that a Turkish court issued to Interpol in 2018.”This has made my international travel impossible,” he said. Experts, including analyst and former lawmaker Aykan Erdemir, have said Veysel Ok, vice president of Turkey’s Media and Law Studies Association, works in Istanbul in July. The media rights lawyer estimates that over 400 journalists have been detained in Turkey since 2016.”These were always the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of journalists, intellectuals, and writers,” he told VOA, adding that before 2016, “in general, this pressure mainly was on Kurdish journalists, Armenian journalists, or journalists and media outlets with left or liberal views.” But after July 15, 2016, “this pressure has begun to be applied to everyone,” Ok said. “From the mainstream media to the (Gulen-affiliated) media, from the left media to the right media, everyone who thinks differently from the government, writes differently, and expresses an opinion other than the official view of the government has become a victim of the government,” he said.Reporting equipment lies on the ground outside the offices of Ankara’s government, and protesters hold a banner that reads “We can’t breathe. Journalism cannot be drowned” during a rally for journalists to be protected from police, June 29, 2021.Effect on Turkey’s media The arrests and harassment have had far-reaching impact on Turkey’s media scene.Media lawyer Ok said that prominent media outlets, including pro-Kurdish or those deemed close to the Gulen movement, had been closed and mainstream media put under new ownership. Journalists looked to new avenues for independent reporting, including social media platforms. But changes to regulations regarding digital news and social media have led to further obstacles. Ankara enacted social media regulations requiring that Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have offices in Turkey and respond to takedown requests quickly or risk fines.Erdogan Seeks to Tame Social Media, Again New Turkish legislation seeks to tighten controls on social media with novel approach that analysts say could succeed this time The Radio and Television Supreme Council, which provides licenses and serves as a watchdog for the country’s broadcasters, has been accused by Human Rights Watch of imposing “punitive and disproportionate sanctions against independent television and radio channels that broadcast commentary and news coverage critical of the Turkish government.” Turkey more recently issued a directive banning police from being photographed at protests, a measure it said was to protect the officers’ privacy. Lawyer Ok described the ban as “unconstitutional.” Changes in the application process for the press cards that give journalists access to official briefings have also proved challenging, with several journalism organizations saying the Directorate of Communications no longer issues accreditation for those at independent or critical outlets. “When the process is not treating journalists equally, this hurts people’s right to be informed. Because if you separate certain journalists, critical journalists, critical outlets from others and make the fieldwork harder for them, this is censorship from whichever angle you look at it,” said Ozgur Ogret, the Turkish representative for CPJ. With Cumhuriyet under different leadership, former Editor-in-Chief Dundar has started a new website from Germany, where he lives in exile. The website, called Ozguruz, which means “we are free” in Turkish, covers events in Turkey and Germany, but access to the site is blocked in Dundar’s home country. Last year, the veteran journalist was sentenced in absentia to more than 27 years in prison for espionage and aiding a terrorist organization. Turkish Court Convicts Journalist Dundar on Terror Charges Dundar, the former editor-in-chief of opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, was on trial for a 2015 story accusing Turkey’s intelligence service of illegally sending weapons to SyriaTanir also no longer works for Cumhuriyet. But even his employer — Ahval, a news website that covers Turkish politics and economics — has faced accusations of Gulen links. Something that Tanir and the media outlet deny.Tanir said that while covering the U.S. State Department, he had been one of the first journalists to question the so-called Gulenists’ alleged involvement in human rights abuses and pressure on the media in the early 2000s. “Anyone can go and look at the archives of the State Department and see who asked most questions about the human rights and press issues (in Turkey) when the Gulenists were powerful and ruling the country indirectly with their allies in the government,” he said. “The record is out there, but once the Turkish government wants to punish a critical journalist, they always find a way.” Umut Colak contributed to this report from Istanbul.
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